Kia ora koutou

> Tony Prescott wrote:


> Time to become a republic, sever diplomatic relations with the UK and change our language to Koori or something so the bastards can't communicate with us to apply for jobs ;-)

Nga mihi nui

One major problem Australia's indigenous people have had is they have several hundred languages, so there is no Koori language as such which can be adopted into the wider society.

Here in NZ we have Te Reo Maori as an official language alongside English and even the most Anglophile among us will know at least some basic phrases in Maori and know how to pronounce the language -- which is closely related to Tahitian, Hawaiian and Cook Islands Maori and more distantly related to Samoan and Tongan -- hence Captain Cook had a Tahitian translator who could translate the languages of all the Pacific island places he visited.

Ma te wa

Ka kite ano

Ko david ahau, Ko Poneke te marae